Hi Jeff,
While I can see how the use of header elements could help locate sections
within a large complex data tables, I have two quick comments.
First, with this table it is obviously necessary to associate 'State
Revenue' and the each row headers (e.g. Specific Purpose) under state
revenue with the content of the data cells in this section. In my opinion,
the most reliable way of doing this is through the use of ids and headers.
Second, as much as I love NVDA and greatly admire the people who develop it,
NVDA is not the best screen reader for testing data tables. NVDA has
terrific support for many things, but data tables is not one of them.
Regards
Roger
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Jeff Orchard
Sent: Wednesday, 28 September 2011 10:26 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: heading elements (h#) in tables?
I'm wondering if heading elements can be used to help make sense of a
complex table.
In this video (http://www.cfit.ie/html5_video/Table2.wmv), Josh O Connor is
leading Stewart Lawler (both from the NCBI) through a test of this table,
which uses an id/headers design:
http://www.wisc.edu/about/facts/budget.php#budgetallocation. About a minute
into the video Stewart is quite reasonably unsure of the role played by the
text in the 'th' element spanning this row:
<tr>
<th colspan="4" class="tbhead" scope="rowgroup">
State revenue
</th>
</tr>
Stewart then asks an interesting question, "That 'state revenue' column --
could that be given a header attribute as well, so that it would say
'heading level 3, State Revenue,' to indicate to the person, ok, this is
actually like a subsection of this table?"
So, this code (assuming he meant a heading element):
<tr>
<th colspan="4" class="tbhead" scope="rowgroup">
<h3>State revenue</h3>
</th>
</tr>
It's never occurred to me to do that, but it validates. And testing in NVDA
I can skip from heading to heading in the table.
Is this kosher?
All the best,
Jeff Orchard
Information Analyst
Toronto, Canada